Finca la Florida

As the only electrical engineer at AIDG, my services were needed at Finca la Florida (a little community in the Guatemalan jungle) to commission and test a "pico" hydroelectric generator. Their previous generator is being repaired and so they have no electricity.

Sam was up earlier this week with Chase (both from AIDG) and they laid a hundred feet of this cheap orange plastic pipe as penstock for the generator. After Chase left, Sam was testing the water flow and discovered that if you shut the top valve quickly, the vacuum created in the pipe caused by the rest of the water draining, collapses the pipe into flat orange noodles. Four hours later he returned from Colomba with a hundred more feet of PVC pipe.

Rafer and I had a fairly successful trip in. We tried calling Sam ahead of time but with the power out, his cellphone had died days ago. We chickenbussed it down to Colomba, then caught a pickup down a cobblestone road through the gorgeous mountains to la entrada a la Florida (the entrance to la Florida). We met three kids who were from the community who walked us in the 45 minute hike, showing us two shortcuts through the jungle along the way.

The previous night, Estoban and Rosaura (the husband and wife leaders of the community) had come to Xela to present their community's story. It was a heart-wrenching tale of how they fought against banks, governments, and the previous finca (farm) owners (zee Germans) for the land they were occupying illegally. Long story short, after a government policy change they were awarded the land after paying some portion of the cost of the land.

As opposed to the previous salary of 20Q/day ($2.67/day) for men, and 10Q/day ($1.33/day) for women, now all workers regardless of sex got 40Q/day (%5.33/day). This luxurious salary affords the community nearly a first world standard of living! ...if you consider unsafe drinking water, indoor open flame stoves (lots of smoke), candle-light, and a diet consisting entirely of rice, beans, tortillas, eggs and thin sweet instant coffee to be first world living, that is. Remember that this salary has to support a large family (usually 10-14 members), although the older ones typically work as well.

Although the bulk of the community's income comes from their coffee production (organic, shade grown, fair-trade uber coffee), they almost never drink their own product. Almost all of it is sold for profit through fair-trade channels and they buy regular big-brand instant coffee (Nescafe) because it is so much cheaper. How ironic.

Sam, Rafer, and I re-laid the PVC pipe down a practically vertical drop and then across a road and through a leech & parasite infested river. Ok fine, no leeches, but it takes a week or so to find out about parasites, so stay tuned...

We worked with a local boy, Mario, whose skill with his machete was astounding. We needed a path cleared in the thick jungle, and he just shrugged and cleared a path through the impenetrable jungle at a slow walking pace, every swing perfectly angled to chop down the most tangly vines or little trees. He was more efficient than Rafer clearing his (and Erik's) dinner plates of every last grain of rice. He hacked a guide in a felled tree for the pipeline with an amused look on his face. I'm still awestruck that every man, woman, and child (walking age and above) wields a machete like an extension of their body.

After the generator was installed and tested, we told the community. They were ecstatic! Now they could charge their cellphones!!! I admit, a little ironic, but let me explain... In order to do a simple task like charge all their cellphones, they had to take a pickup truck into Colomba (7Q + 1Q if the "police" stop you) and spend between 3Q-5Q per charge, and then get a return ride. Ridiculous! They were taking all their cellphones and sending one member of the community to run this errand prior to this generator install. Now they wouldn't have to do that. Once the large generator came back, then they could run their coffee processing machines, which was obviously a bigger deal but only during coffee season.

Each meal we had with a different family of the community where we communicated in our broken spanish, trying to elicit a few laughs in thanks for our simple small meals. The time spent with the families was educational and it certainly highlighted one of the most useful things that could be done in these third world countries: family planning. Most of the families we met had 8-12 children. Some of the more progressive families had "only" 5 children. I'm not sure how sustainable quadrupling or quintupling your population every 30 years is, but I suspect the answer falls near "not at all". I won't rant here about it, but the Catholic Church's influence is very strong, and their conservative attitudes towards birth control make birth control neither used often nor easy to find (they're hidden in giant walmart-owned supermarkets in brown cardboard boxes on the floor in case you're looking).

Dan.